The top career official at Japan’s health ministry called the scandal over flawed studies of a Novartis AG drug a “big shock” and said the ministry would take action after receiving a report expected soon from a ministry study body. “We have received a big shock over this affair,” Atsuko Muraki, vice minister of health, labor and welfare, said in an interview in Washington. “It has caused worries and a lack of trust … in the process by which new drugs are developed.”